


Santa Jared (Hurry Down the Chimney Tonight)

by veterization



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Christmas, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-01
Updated: 2012-08-01
Packaged: 2017-11-11 05:12:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/474882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veterization/pseuds/veterization
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Jensen meets Jared Padalecki, the Santa at the store, and happens to fall for him. Festivity and romance ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Santa Jared (Hurry Down the Chimney Tonight)

Sometimes, Jensen is cruelly reminded that the people he spends the most time with are people he really doesn't know at all around the holiday season.  
  
It's almost as if Christmas shopping is built to separate the mother who Jensen knows only trusts a certain brand of toaster from the coworker Jensen only waves at during parties and occasionally happens to be sitting next to during event functions, the friend who Jensen isn't even sure if he celebrates Christmas, Chanukah, or is just one of those Atheists who believes in no sort of religion but reels in presents anyway from the sister who makes it a tradition to pin up her desired wishing list on the fridge every December.  
  
He's grazing through the electronics aisle with a watchful eye for anything large, shiny, and particularly appealing to the eye in the vain hope to find something fitting for Chris. He's got a furled up list of names and potential gifts to go with each in one of his palms, a few of the individuals already crossed out when Jensen realized he was having trouble remembering where he knew them from, his other hand maneuvering his unfortunately barren shopping cart. It's not brimming with the unbridled potential of well-chosen presents and the promise of pleased Christmas morning squeals like some of the other carts he sees passing his own. He's considering heading straight for the frame aisle to stuff his cart full of impersonal gifts that are a symbol of a startling lack of knowledge to a friend's interests as his eyes rake over an array of iPods that look like they just marched straight out of the gay pride parade. He can't help but ruminate if perhaps Chris is that one obnoxious friend with either a habit for reckless spending or more cash that can fit into an average bank vault, therefore meaning he already owns everything he wants, making the task of shopping for him so difficult, and Jensen dismisses the idea as an excuse as to why he can't find anything for his friend after forty-six torturous minutes of perusing shelves.  
  
He remembers Chris preparing an intriguing batch of Southern chili a few winters ago and recalls that the man likes to cook, but not only cook, but rather cook too much. He weighs the options between a Wolfgang Puck sandwich grill and a spice rack, and after a few minutes of mindless deliberation and the risk of looking uniform, snatches up the spice rack and lets the vials of basil and parsley jiggle in his cart.  
  
It's not that he doesn't enjoy Christmastime. He normally visits his family down in Dallas and his mother creates a meal large enough to not fit on the table and his brother and him always engage in a wordless eggnog chugging competition. His home is always cozier during the holidays, the air reeking of warmth like a cheesy Disney Christmas special and the smell of cinnamon in the air. He doesn't even mind the blasting Christmas music on every radio station no matter how much he can't stand Dean Martin singing about the snow anymore, the tedious task of sweeping up pine needles from underneath his tree, or the mistletoes hung up here and there posing the threat of less than desirable encounters with strangers.  
  
It's just the commercial part of Christmas, the ordeal of stocking stuffers and shiny wrapping paper and just the right, insightful gift for his sister that has him wanting to sleep in until New Year.  
  
He likes lists. He likes uniform, standard lists. He puts his own wishing lists up on the billboard in his hall and makes it a yearly task to subtly send out ideas to every one of his friends or mention it on the phone. It's what he would love for people to do for him. There's nothing worse than presenting his sister with the blue karaoke set with the microphone he was positive she requested on Christmas morning, when actually, she wanted the lavender karaoke set with the built-in headset, and instead of getting his arms full of a shrieking sibling and a mouthful of hair, he gets to witness her crestfallen frown.  
  
Jensen wheels his cart around, the spice racks repetitively knocking out a rhythm. He heads for the check-out, content with his souvenir from the maternity aisle and the array of spices, when he passes by the corner of the store decked out in woolly cotton mimicking freshly laid snow and a plastic gate squaring off a corner of the shop dedicated to a throng of people vaguely resembling a line of impatient children and their equally impatient parents in front of a crimson throne with an in-costume Santa situated comfortably on top of it.  
  
He's always felt bad for the Santa, getting paid a presumably poor amount by the hour and having to an endure a stuffy suit with a thick pillow blanketed inside of it as well, not to mention the scratchy cheap beard taped on by the ears and constant smile that's more requirement for the sake of the elated children than a choice. It's not that he isn't a fan of children, he just isn't sure he would be up for enduring hours on end of them bouncing on his leg and rattling down a list of material toys that no child will even glance at come three months later.  
  
Jensen glances at the line crowding outside of the gate, kids perched on their father's shoulders to attempt to a get a good glance at their childhood idol come every December. He silently blesses the heavens for the fact that he doesn't have a child of his own yanking on his sleeve and pointing insistent pudgy fingers in the direction of the line, because not only are his feet hurting up a storm after half a day's shopping, but he has other things to still finish that don't involve waiting two hours so a man in a costume can chortle at his kid.  
  
Santa lets out a loud bark of laughter, loud enough to echo through a few of the shelves, the sort of laugh Jensen would imagine coming out of an actual Santa's lips were he not fictional along with a hint of an amused young man adjoining the feigned guffaw. He glances at Santa, a girl not older than five that's all smiles perched on his knee, his arm wrapped around her tiny back. The pillow in his suit is practically outlined and easy to spot, even though the thick fabric that makes up the suit itself. From the looks of its thickness, the suit looks like it could be a comforter instead of clothing, and Jensen's surprised to see a lack of gathering beads of moisture on Santa's forehead.  
  
Santa laughs again at something the girl murmured and pokes her gingerly in the stomach. She giggles again and squirms on his knee as he pats her back. It's then that Jensen notices the guy's hands. Long, slender fingers with rounded fingernails and a broad palm. From far away, Jensen could practically assume that the guy has arms on his arm from the size of his palm alone. Jensen likes impressive size, and there's no denying as his eyes rake over the man's lengthy form and hands that _this_ is impressive size.  
  
Santa's hands make Jensen start to wonder if it'd be possible for him to unearth some of his youth and be accepted as a kid with a hefty handful of puberty to his luck so he could plant himself on the man's lap if he got into a pair of overalls and a fuzzy cap from the toddler's section, and he promptly dismisses the ludicrous idea as illogical thinking thanks to the man's hands. The girl jumps off of Santa's lap and leaps into her mother's arms with a grin so wide it's threatening to split apart her cheeks, and another child heads for Santa's lap after he wriggles his hips a little.  
  
Jensen wonders, a little dryly, when he began resigning himself to the in-costume Santas at the store. It's not like he'd go after the real Santa were he to ever knock on Jensen's door with handcuffs and a special present that definitely can't be placed under a tree, let alone a man with a long frosty beard or a belly large enough to be used as a storage compartment during kidnapping heists. The red suit the man is wearing is certainly not flattering to his form by any means and his elderly chuckle isn't all too appealing to Jensen either. He tries to remind himself that the man took the job to make children smile, not to advertise himself off to lurking young men shopping for their mothers, and that Jensen didn't come to the store to ogle maybe, maybe not attractive men enjoying the holiday spirit to the maximum.  
  
Santa laughs again. Jensen gets a glimpse of the guy's teeth, and maybe even the back of his throat, because Santa seems to have a laugh so strong he tips his head back when he lets it loose.  
  
Jensen retracts his earlier statement. He wishes he had a kid.  
  
\--  
  
Despite contrary belief, it's _not_ very easy to forget about attractive men in Santa costumes even a week after first glimpse.  
  
Jensen hasn't spent a Christmas with someone who feeds him holiday pudding instead of throwing it at him in over three years. He has his few drunken nights out, but whenever Chris mentions his dry spell and Jensen passes it off as a phase, Chris reminds him that thirty-six months is more of a lifestyle than a phase.  
  
Two years ago, he had a plan based entirely on the outcome of how well his mistletoe proceeded to work. He's seen his fair share of movies. People are drawn to mistletoes, some linger underneath them until an innocuous passing by individual joins them, and then there's the unspoken rule of the glass box that encircles anyone trapped underneath it, as though walking out from a potential tinsel-induced kiss is a severe breaking of holiday rules. So he fished one out of his mother's decoration box and glued it up over his doorway.  
  
Two weeks later, after an unfortunate run-in with Steve underneath it with Chris being the audience roaring with unsuppressed laughter at the sight, Jensen put the mistletoe back in the box it came from.  
  
The Secret Santa gift exchange did not help in his revelation that everyone he knew was spending their holidays wrapped up in a Snuggie and their lover's arms, when the discretion that was required for Secret Santa was promptly disregarded and at least three of his coworkers approached him in the hope that he possessed the name equivalent to that of their significant other. After the fourth reassurance that he was not involved in the gift exchange of any of the couples at his workplace, he dropped out of the exchange at the expense of a new tie from Macy's.  
  
A handful of years and a few months later that Jensen tries incredibly hard to forget the exact number of, he's still alone.  
  
Jensen tries to find the appeal behind the Santa at the store that, with each passing day, becomes blurrier and blurrier in his memory, and all he remembers are broad palms and an uneven smile bright enough to rival the sun and all of the global warming that comes with it, and he goes from pinpointing the man's appeal to wondering if he still does Santa shifts at the store. He considers telling Chris, even at the risk of a few disturbing kink jokes and being told to go after a boyfriend who doesn't impersonate a fictional character so children rub against his lap all day, but that idea too, is stomped into the ground. Internally, Jensen hopes that the guy is secretly a pervert or a hobo in need of some holiday cash for dinner, mostly so he'll have a reason to be deterred the next time he goes to the store to finish shopping for his friends.  
  
Jensen flips through the late night programs on the television with a lazy thumb as his eyelids slip into half-mast position. The murmuring from the characters on the TV are doing little to stop him from lulling into a slumber, but when he glances over at the sight of Chris' feet propped up on Steve's lap and a hand curled languidly at the nape of his neck where the hair gets bristly while Steve strums quietly on his guitar and leans into Chris' hand, he wishes he had already fallen asleep.  
  
\--  
  
Jensen's nephew is, as an understatement, a handful.  
  
If Jensen didn't know better, he'd be assuming that the kid had found his way into a lifetime supply of energy drinks and drank away until it was a part of his blood, now nothing but a puppy on speed that happens to never wear off.  
  
He's reminded on a particularly busy Saturday afternoon at the mall that that's the reason why he normally doesn't offer to babysit.  
  
This time, however, his nephew's hand tight in his own since the boy keeps trying to escape and run toward random displays of Christmas decorations and children's toys, Jensen had voluntarily offered to take the kid off of Josh's arms for an afternoon. Now three hours after hot chocolate was dumped unceremoniously on his shoes and had stained his socks a nice sticky, dark brown, an incident where the boy had accidentally knocked off three stainless steel pans from a shelf, and more shrill yelling than he can handle even on a day when he's intoxicated, Jensen's starting to think he needs better tactics to secure himself a boyfriend.  
  
He's managed to calm the kid down after a few hours of endless running through malls, but the moment he sees the Santa throne in the corner of the store any and all worn enthusiasm returns to the boy like someone has just replaced his battery. The line's shorter because most children are lagging in need of a lunch fix at the current hour, but Josh's son has the stamina of a race horse and is still bouncing up and down as though Jensen needs to remove the trampoline from underneath his feet.  
  
After a good few weeks of mulling at home and playing guitar with his friends instead of finishing the dreadful task of Christmas shopping, Jensen has to admit that he's surprisingly excited for this current moment. He's played up the Santa he remembers as a man with a laugh happier than a rainbow's with a mouth and a broad stance built as the foundation for futuristic strong, Herculean men. If there's anything that can brighten his day with a four-year-old boy, it's an attractive man.  
  
And then, there's laughing.  
  
It's exactly as he remembered, good enough to record just so he can play it over and over again like a lovestruck teenager grinning during his first phone call with his girlfriend. He's never heard of anyone falling in love by the sound of a good laugh, but if there's anyone he could get used to, it's this sound.  
  
When it's their turn, Jensen is about to battle his nephew up there when the boy goes streaking straight into Santa's lap and situates himself comfortably against his knee. Up close, Jensen can see the man's face much more clearly, and there's nothing vaguely Santa-like about it. No rubicund cheeks and pointed nose, beady eyes or wrinkled forehead. He's young. Much too young to be impersonating Santa, even though his laugh is meticulous.  
  
He hears mumbling, giggling, his nephew beaming, and then Jensen's eyes are instead yanked up from Santa's seemingly growing hands when the boy promptly rips off Santa's beard with a tugging thumb.  
  
Jensen gapes. And gapes some more. He can hardly believe he's the guy with _that_ kid.  
  
He rushes ahead before any of the mothers behind him can start gasping and gossiping at his poorly mannered child and quickly deposits his nephew on the floor and off of Santa's lap. So much for the boyfriend idea.  
  
He's raking both hands through his hair at the sight of two slightly irritated, angry spots underneath Santa's ear from where the adhesive must have come tearing off and is about to start apologizing when the sound of Santa's soft snickering breaks his train of thought.  
  
"Well, that's _one_ way to relieve that itch." He says, and his fingers reach up to scratch at his chin. The man doesn't actually have a foot-long pearly beard, much to Jensen's approval, nothing but soft afternoon stubble that Jensen can detect in the light.  
  
"Uh," Jensen says, and is temporarily at a loss for words as he scrambles for the beard now in Santa's lap, "You all right? I'm sorry about him, he's not--"  
  
"Don't worry about him, he's a nice kid." Santa chuckles again, and Jensen realizes that the guy has dropped his gruff elderly man tone and replaced it with his own soft, slightly Southern drawl. Jensen blinks and blindly holds out the beard. Santa takes it.  
  
"That didn't hurt?" His thumb reaches out to brush against the reddening spot at his jaw, and the guy shrugs. Jensen's practically forgotten about his nephew, wavering on the spot on the floor and gaping as his mythological idol replaces his beard. Jensen mentally berates himself and his skills as an uncle.  
  
"He's not the first kid with some grabby fingers," Santa says, and winks at his nephew. Jensen blinks. Santa proceeds to reattach his beard.  
  
"Oh. That's good."  
  
"Is he yours?"  
  
The chatter of impatient parents presumably complaining about the wait with this particular troublesome child isn't even in Jensen's list of concerns as Santa jerks a thumb toward Josh's son and Jensen shakes his head.  
  
"He's my brother's. I'd come myself but there's a height limit as to who gets to sit on Santa's lap."  
  
The joke is wildly inappropriate and Jensen winces after he says it, mostly because no matter how morally unethical it was to use Josh's son as bait so he can spend five blissful minutes listening to the laugh of a uniformed Santa, he's not a lewd pervert bringing other people's sons to the store so he can ogle Santa's crotch. Even though in a morbid way, he is. Santa laughs anyway, as though this whole ordeal is nothing but entertainment to him. Jensen is still wrapping his head around the fact that his nephew just ripped off Santa's beard, and here he is attempting to reattach it. If it was a real Santa, it might be a lot more ludicrous, but considering that the current Santa is much too attractive to represent mythical creatures from the North Pole, it's still pretty ludicrous.  
  
"Everyone still has something to wish for, right?"  
  
A myriad of Santa and his reindeer, Santa and his elf, Santa and his Christmas cookies fantasies whizz through his brain like a low budget porn director is controlling it. God _yes_ , he has things he’s wishing for his year, the scented candles and flat screen TV forgotten. Jensen smiles as the guy fiddles with his beard, attempting to stick it back onto the designated spots under his ear before the crowd starts watching and kids start bawling once they realize that the Santa they came to visit is a man in a beard.  
  
"Guess so." Jensen shrugs, and Santa grins again. He's got a nice face. A bright smile where he pushes his tongue up against his teeth when he grins, an adorably pointy nose, and soft tendrils of brown hair sticking out from underneath the white band of his hat.  
  
The beard comes back on, and so does the voice. There's another overdone Santa guffaw, and he smiles at Jensen's nephew before apologizing about their shortened talk. He waves at Jensen and his nephew with that monster hand of his, and with only a brief fleeting mental image of how many things that hand could possibly do, Jensen hurries out of the store with Josh's son still secured to him by the hand.  
  
\--  
  
Jensen is done shopping for his entire family, all of his friends, and even the annoying coworkers that hog the bathrooms and call their mothers too much during working hours. He's even bought Steve's fish a Christmas present.  
  
Still, he claims that there's no problem in some holiday browsing at the mall.  
  
Whether it be of men or merchandise, Jensen doesn't think makes much of a difference.  
  
Christmas is in one week, and Jensen doesn't see a lot of overstuffed shopping carts now. He sees a few last minute shoppers picking up comforters and bathroom rugs without even glancing at them, a vastly different shopping method in comparison to those who buy in May, analyze the packaging, and pick just the right shade of every product. He doesn't like the urgency behind last minute shoppers, even though he normally is one himself.  
  
He comes later to the store than he typically would in the hope to not encounter such a bustling line stuffed with chattering children and the parents failing to shush them properly at Santa's corner, but by the time he approaches it, he's stunned to see that the corner is entirely vacant. He glances at his wristwatch and in retrospect, realizes that perhaps he did come a bit _too_ late.  
  
Jensen's busy wondering where those who sign up as store Santas get employed after the holidays are over, because for some strange reason, a man in a red suit with a bellowing laugh is not a large attraction in the summer as it is in the winter. The Santa Jensen remembers could get a job as an Abercrombie model if he wanted, but somehow he doubts he'll be seeing the man leaning against display cases in musky, overpriced clothing shops when December dwindles away. A part of him, the part Jensen assumes is the surviving bit of his adolescent, horny self that was intent on finding relief with Santa in the back of the store, weeps in a corner.  
  
He's still contemplating the gorgeous Santa's future when he tumbles straight into a wall, or rather, after rubbing the spot on his forehead that just painfully shielded the rest of his face from his bump, something that isn't a wall at all.  
  
"Oh jeez," A voice says, and Jensen finds himself having to look up, "Sorry, sorry, my fault."  
  
Jensen let's out a garbled _it's fine_ at the sight of the man, tall enough to have parents who bred with skyscrapers. He's about to reciprocate the apology because he was too busy daydreaming about Santa to watch where he was going, no matter how incongruous the situation seems, when the guy grabs his arm and smiles.  
  
"You're the guy with the kid who decided he didn't like my beard, right?"  
  
Jensen blinks, and a second later he chastises himself for not recognizing that smile sooner. Curved nose, smooth jaw, unruly brown hair that curls at his ears, and a figure that his suit definitely doesn’t do justice to. He's got broad shoulders like a wall might, a firm chest and legs that reach down into the innards of the earth, and it takes Jensen a second to even imagine the guy in his costume anymore.  
  
"Right!" Jensen says, "Santa! You're -- yeah, that was my kid."  
  
"Did you bring him with you or are you just enjoyin' some evening shopping before Christmas?"  
  
Jensen wants to say that the very easily spotted lack of boisterous horsing around should answer the question wordlessly, but instead he manages a smile, "He's back with my brother. Just browsing. You recognized me?"  
  
The guy looks at him like he's slow, and then slowly starts chuckling, "Well, yeah. You're pretty recognizable."  
  
"I, uh," Jensen takes a moment to let that sink in. Something hot and similar to a burning blush crawls up his cheekbones and stays there. "You are too. Just never saw you when you weren't... Santa Claus." The sentence sounds like something out of a Lifetime movie, but he swallows back the need to mock the hilarity of the situation with a curve of his lips.  
  
"Ain't that the truth," he says, and holds his hand out, his face all smiles again. Jensen feels like he'll get sunburned if he stares at it for too long. "I'm Jared."  
  
"Jensen," He grab's Jared's hand, warm like he was holding a mug of fresh coffee a second ago. His hand looks bigger, if that's at all possible, now that it's blanketing Jensen's with his own.  
  
"So, I was thinking. You could pay me back for your nephew tugging on my artificial facial hair, if you want?" It sounds more like Jared's propositioning that he's one the handing out any favors instead of the other way around. The blush inches up to the cusp of his ears and prickles all the way.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Yeah. You wanna get some coffee with me? I've been working pretty much all day."  
  
Jensen takes a few moments to process that. He still can't get over how downright _tall_ Jared is. He feels like if he finds himself staring at the man for too long, the muscles in his neck will feel the consequences and get sore. He feels a little bit like the Charlie Brown characters when they walk around with their noses in the air or even one of the kids prancing around the store and bouncing into Santa's lap himself, because in comparison to Jared, he feels so unbelievably tiny. It's not an inferiority complex, Jensen knows, but rather a bafflement at how easily he'd be able to build a nest inside Jared's arms were he ever enveloped in a full-on hug.  
  
He suddenly remembers that Jared has asked him a question, his face all bright and stretched with a smile as if rejection is the last thing flitting through his mind right now, only awaiting Jensen's answer with a smile that could give the warmth of the sun a run for its money.  
  
"I. I'd love to." Jensen pushes his cart unceremoniously into a nearby aisle, the corner of it smashing straight into a glittery display of Christmas cards for Grandma.  
  
Jensen's horribly glad that he's still attracted to Jared when he isn't Santa, because if that wasn't the case, there would be a lot of self evaluation to be done.  
  
\--  
  
Jared’s idea of grabbing a cup of coffee before the sun falls beneath the horizon and the wintertime crisp chill worms into the night happens to be preceded with steering Jensen’s shopping cart to the Christmas decorations and fawning over this year’s selection of ornaments. He’s in the middle of shaking a box of silver glass ornaments under Jensen’s nose to request his opinion on their intricacy when Jensen realizes that he’s been ogling Santa’s every movement ever since they’ve started wandering toward corner of the store bursting with artificial trees crammed together and blinking with sporadic lights and rows of snowman-themed wrapping paper. It’s empty with the exception of an elderly couple bent over the lettered stockings in the middle of late-night shopping, and now, Jared’s thousand watt smile as he twirls ornaments in his hands.  
  
“Sorry,” Jared says, picking up a fluffy snowman jiggling on its ornamental hook and examining it, “I know I work here, but I’m normally too busy being Santa to come over to this side of the store.”  
  
“No problem,” Jensen says, and it really isn’t. He was ready to execute his sly scheme of convincing Josh to bring his nephew to the store once more so he could try to engage Jared in conversation and breezily mention their earlier mishap with Jared’s adhesive beard to trigger Jared’s recollection of him and possibly, his awkward charm and ability to discipline children when they’re not busy tugging on artificial beards, and suddenly, Jensen’s perusing the packaged ornament section with the same man that Jensen’s spent weeks shamelessly eyeballing without so much as throwing out his most humorous jokes and luring him into a car with the promise of a free dinner and movie date.  
  
“I like Christmas a lot,” Jared tells him, still grinning, and Jensen feels himself get momentarily lost in his beam. Now that he’s clad in regular clothing and no longer enshrouded in massive amounts of red velvet and cotton beards, Jensen is having trouble looking away. Jared is tall like a lamppost and just as bright as one, with a large grin and contagious laugh that seems to bubble out straight from his throat and go on for miles. The fact that he was meticulously imitating Santa a mere few hours ago and managed to convince a store full of children that he was the real gift giver of Christmastime and now he’s standing in front of Jensen in jeans, flip-flops, untidy brown hair curling over his ears, and a smile akin to the innocence Jensen often sees in small children barely able to wobble on their own two feet.  
  
“I could tell,” Jensen says, and manages a crooked grin in return, “You know, from the whole, being the Santa at the mall thing.”  
  
“Well, I’m not really planning on this being my job for the rest of my life,” Jared says with a shrug and a wink in Jensen’s direction that makes Jensen want to grab the other man by the shoulders, shove him into the tree display and molest his mouth with his own. However, Jensen’s common sense kicks in before he rushes forward and follows through on his urge, and he manages a small smile in response instead.  
  
“You like these ornaments?” Jared asks, holding up a box of glittery rubicund ornaments shimmering in the lights, and Jensen has to force his eyes to move from Jared’s dimples to the box extended toward him.  
  
“I do,” says Jensen, “So what do you really want to do if you’re not going to be Santa Claus for the rest of your life?”  
  
“One day I may want to try to do the real thing and go to Hollywood. Don’t get me wrong, I love this job. My friend Chad has to be my elf assistant, which is already a serious perk, but the children are just precious. They look at me like they can’t believe what they’re seeing,” Jared’s grin turns into a snort of laughter, “And sometimes, they really _don’t_ believe what they’re seeing and try to pull off my beard.” He dabs delicately at the spots of flesh under his ears and picks up two more boxes of ornaments before deeming them festive enough to be displayed on his tree and storing them under the grip of his arm.  
  
“If it’s any consolation, he still believes Santa is real,” Jensen says, “Just that he’s magical enough to be able to reattach and pull off his beard whenever he wants.”  
  
Jared throws his head back a roar of laughter and Jensen feels the tempting desire to follow suit and burst into schoolgirl giggles that pull all of the air from his lungs like a vacuum until his eyes water. Jared resurfaces and grins at him a few seconds later before toying with an enormous wreath.  
  
“Y’like wreaths, Jensen? My momma makes them herself every year,” he looks over at Jensen, “This is my first year not flying home to Texas for Christmas. Tryin’ to make my home as Christmassy as possible.”  
  
Jared speaks to Jensen like he’s a friend he’s known for years and can merrily chat to concerning his Christmas plans, and Jensen envies his ability to find comfort in strangers so easily. He’s almost expecting Jared to launch into his meal plan for Christmas night and what porcelain figurine he’s planning on shipping to his mother as a consolation present for not showing up to a family Christmas reunion, and in the midst of Jared’s leisurely smile and blatant comfort, Jensen finds himself sharing as well.  
  
“I’m from Texas, too,” he says, and Jared grins like Christmas has knocked on his doorstep early.  
  
“Really? Knew I heard an accent, man!”  
  
He looks, Jensen realizes, scarily reminiscent of a puppy with his eyes fixated on a slab of juicy meat, ready to bounce on his hind legs and snatch up the temptation of food, which in this case, was Jensen's extensive history and memories of Texan summers waiting to be shared.  
  
“I come back every chance I get, if even just to see my little sister and eat my mom's pie. Aww, man, even just talking about this is making me homesick. She'd put a tiny bit of cinnamon into the crust so even if it was a rainy spring night, you'd eat her pie and feel like it was fall again. I once made the mistake of bringing my friend Chad with me to Texas and now he's the biggest brownnoser to my momma just to get a slice of her pie. Man, Jensen, you'd love it."  
  
Jared’s rambling at one hundred miles an hour, hands brandishing invisible pies as he delves further into his story. It’s like watching a small child see snow fall for the first time, or dance in the waves of the ocean, or go down a roller coaster. It's fast, nonsensical, and somehow, incredibly amusing, and by the time Jared's sharing stories of falling down three branches of his backyard's apple tree and twisting both his ankles, Jensen's grinning.  
  
“Man, am I talking too much?”  
  
“Dude, no,” Jensen says, and almost feels a plea for him to continue his storytelling escape from where it's gathering at the tip of his tongue, "I just... you're funny."  
  
An enormous hand wafts up to rub at the nape of Jared’s neck as he ducks his head and grins, Jensen noticing a flash of happy white teeth before it’s out of sight. Jared steals a glance at Jensen from underneath the curtain of his bangs, falling into his forehead in a way that should be raggedy but is just handsomely untidy and makes Jensen want to press Jared up against the nearest shelf, whether or not a handful of delicate glass ornaments will shatter and suffer the price of his aggression as a consequence, and lick up the expanse of Jared’s neck until Jensen has permanently embedded his DNA into Jared’s flesh and can be satisfied with his work. It's an alluring concept, especially when Jared straightens up and presses his tongue against the line of his teeth. Jensen catches a fleck of wet, pink tongue and almost liquefies into a pile of uncontrollable hormones he seems to be unwillingly borrowing from a teenage boy sneaking into the girls' locker room after gym.  
  
“Thanks, man.”  
  
“And hey,” Jensen says, a part of him spontaneously itching to share his own childhood tales where someone suffers an injury and all is fixed with his mother's homemade dinners, "I can relate. I got a sister too, and she dared me and my brother to fly off of the roof of our garden shed. I only twisted one ankle, though.”  
  
“Both of you jumped from the roof?"  
  
“Yeah,” Jensen says, crooked smile tugging on his lips, “but hey, I wasn’t the one under the delusion that I was Batman like my brother. I just didn't want to look like a chicken in front of my baby sister."  
  
Jared laughs, authentically laughs as if he’s genuinely humored by Jensen's bizarre accounts from his youth, stories that Chris uses as humiliation ammo and Steve can't listen through without springing up with a story ten times as wild and begin desperately yearning to interrupt. The laugh is addictive, contagious, and just like the one that Jensen heard when he first laid eyes on the most enticing, attractive man imitating an elderly mythical figure he’s ever seen don a pretend beard and matching beard. It sparks a fire in Jensen's belly that smokes up his brain and makes him giddy, high, and unbelievably excited to hear countless numbers of Jared’s anecdotes over falling into lakes at camp or eating forty-one pancakes in a Thanksgiving eating contest that resulted in being sick for two days straight. He wants to hear more ludicrous tales and watch Jared’s face light up as he mentions his mother and his brother and his vulgar comrade in crime Chad, and Jensen doesn’t realize he’s grinning like a teenager cooing over a valentine until he realizes that Jared's chatting has come to a stop.  
  
“You got a such an awesome smile, dude,” Jared says, and Jensen notices that he’s looking at Jensen’s face as if he’s watching a priceless piece of ancient Egyptian art, sculpted to perfection, and for a moment, Jensen feels the urge to bury his head in the bristly branches of the nearest twinkling Christmas tree. He doesn't remember the last time he's been looked at quite like this, truly examined and watched in awe.  
  
“Seriously?”  
  
“Yeah,” Jared says, and licks his lips, that pink tongue Jensen was keeping an eye on earlier darting out to moisten his mouth when it curves up into a smile, "Man, you should be glad you don't have a mistletoe over your head right now, Jensen.”  
  
 _Oh_ , Jensen thinks, and now he remembers That Look. It's not foreign to him, but each time it's directed at him, it's difficult to place. He's seen it filling up his car's gas tank when the slender woman wearing a surplus of lip gloss at the pump across from his noticed his shirt riding up to expose a sliver of his back when he leant over the hood of his car. He's seen it in bars, he saw it in college, and he's even see it on Chris' face once when he walked in on Jensen toweling off after a shower he forgot to lock the door for. On Jared's face, however, it's different. It's part puppy, part child watching Christmas lights turn on for the first time, part horny teenager stumbling upon online pornography, a tantalizing blend of concentration, fascination, and poorly veiled attraction that has Jensen feeling a similar magnetism buzzing through the very tips of his fingers toward Jared.  
  
“Wow,” Jensen manages to breathe out, fully aware in the back of his mind that if his friends would be present to witness this discussion, they’d be in peals of laughter and falling into wrapping paper stands at the sight of Jensen having difficulty stringing coherent sentences together, "Y'know, you don't need a mistletoe to kiss me. I think I'd be fine with just a lamp fixture overhead."  
  
Jared’s grin increases by a sizable truckload of watts, and suddenly, his fingers are tangling into the collar of Jensen's coat and gently tugging him forward to plant a chaste kiss on his unsuspecting mouth that lingers like a good bite of tangy apple pie. It's short, sweet, lasts two seconds, and when Jared pulls back to admire his work with a pleased beam, Jensen feels the overwhelming urge to hold hands, go sledding, and sit in front of crackling fireplaces while nursing foamy hot chocolates with the man in front of him.  
  
“So, I don’t mean to brag," Jared starts, shifting from foot to foot and tossing a set of glittery Christmas cards into his cart, "but if I told you that I owned a collection of over a few thousand elves and a house up in the North Pole, would that impress you enough to go out on a date with me?"  
  
“Yeah, that just about seals the deal.”  
  
\--  
  
Jensen, never the wrapping guru in his family, notorious for snagging the crinkly bags out of the Christmas closet weeks before any of his siblings could claim them for their own to avoid the horrors of measuring wrapping paper and tackling the challenge of proportional folding, is stuck with the catastrophic task of wrapping Danneel a box of high-heeled russet boots she had been cooing over a few weeks prior while shopping for pants fit for the icy season when the phone rings.  
  
He has scissors dangling precariously from where his teeth are securing them in the grip of his mouth, bits of tape hanging from each of the fingers on his left hand, and his remaining hand desperately attempting to keep the shoe box in place. There's still a daunting heap of unwrapped presents in the corner of the room glowering at him to hasten in his task. Jensen glowers back and lets the scissors fall from the trap of his teeth as he grabs his phone from the table.  
  
“So, I just happen to have a batch of Christmas cookies," an eager voice says in lieu of a greeting, "Is this a great excuse for me to come over or what?"  
  
“The other children are going to be jealous if they find out that Santa’s favoring me this year,” Jensen says. There's the tinny sound of consecutive clanks of baking sheets wafting through the phone, followed by the eager barking of dogs and the resulting shushing from Jared.  
  
“Goodness, Sadie, I can’t get you addicted to cookies too,” he mumbles in the vague direction of the impatient barking before exhaling into the phone, “Okay, I’m coming over. Even Santa’s allowed to have favorites.”  
  
Jensen steals a glance at the pile of naked gifts that seems to mysteriously grow by the minute like a cruel game of torturous Tetris and considers protesting, and then promptly decides that sticking bows on top of boxed shirts doesn't prioritize over eating festive cookies with a beautiful man. His mind supplies a helpful image forever etched in Jensen's memory, normally reserved for particularly stressful days at work or when he's in the shower and the steam's spurring on his hormones, of Jared's dorky, lopsided grin seconds before ducking in to capture Jensen's unsuspecting lips in a kiss in the middle of the wrapping paper aisle. Jensen lets himself lull in his reverie for a total of thirty seconds before he scoops seven rolls of haphazardly furled wrapping paper in his arms and shoves them hastily under his couch where they can hide for the duration of Jared's visit.  
  
He’s in the middle of stowing the pile of unwrapped presents into the corner where they can hide behind Steve's DVD rack for the time being when the doorbell rings, and when Jensen opens the door, he's instantly met with a platter of enough cookies to feed an army, decorated with festive sprinkles, uneven lines of icing outlining snowmen and ornaments, and dollops of vibrant frosting. It smells of fresh cinnamon and sugar, and underneath the gust of icy wind slipping in past Jared's figure when Jensen opens the door, the soft aroma of warm baking that pulls Jensen years back to when he would awake to the scent of apple pie on Thanksgiving morning.  
  
“Smells good, doesn’t it?” Jared says, rocking the plate under Jensen’s nose, “Hey.” He adds as a belated greeting, curling one gloved hand around Jensen’s shoulder.  
  
If Jensen had assumed that this would have been a replay of high school, where one chaste make out session with a pretty, plump-limped girl behind the bleachers after gym morphed into awkward, thick tension for months afterward where Jensen danced on nails wondering if he still had the right to assume that his schoolboy crush wasn't unrequited, he was wrong. Jared's constantly akimbo body and down-to-earth mind doesn’t even consider beating around the bush or asking cumbersome questions prior to executing action; he pulls Jensen in close to his body and in lieu of a banal _how are you today?_ , Jared replaces the words with a sticky kiss that tastes like the cinnamon cookies he must have been sneaking on the ride over. It's soft and ends with a swipe of Jared's tongue over Jensen's lip that has him whimpering and tugging him back down by the nape of his neck to elongate his hello. It’s Jensen's reassurance that the fleeting kiss in the store wasn't wishful thinking or an accident that Jared isn’t keen on reproducing, especially when Jared’s tongue slides against Jensen’s, wet and delicious and spicy like a slice of nutmeg pie, to seal the deal.  
  
“Hey,” Jared repeats when he pulls back, mouth shiny when he smiles and idly rubs the pad of his thumb over his lower lip. Jensen remembers licking that lower lip. Something fuzzy like a newborn puppy persistently hops in his stomach that Jensen has difficulty ignoring. "I know I should've asked before doing that, but I just really wanted to."  
  
“No complaints,” Jensen says faintly, aware that the loitering flavor of Christmas cookies is still resting on his lip from where Jared thoroughly kissed it. He takes the plate from Jared's hands and steps away from the threshold to let Jared step inside and follow him to the kitchen, Jared's palm splayed out on the small of Jensen's back the whole time. Bouncing about his ribcage, the puppy skips.  
  
“Dude,” Jared says, coming to an abrupt stop three steps away from the kitchen, eyes fixed on the living room as if he’s walked in on a massacre that’s polluted the entire room, complete with blood and mangled limbs, “Where's your tree?”  
  
Jensen looks up from his task of picking out an adequately frosted cookie to devour, following Jared's gaze to where his couches, fireplace, and where his poorly hidden stack of presents discreetly looms behind the rack of mismatched movies resides. He supposes that there are several corners of empty space where a sizable tree could squeeze in and realizes that out of three men all occupying the same house, no one had thought to take a break from mindless channel surfing, Steve pretending he didn’t have a fondness for the home shopping networks, and Chris tuning his guitar every four hours so that they could haul the tree up from the basement and string lights through the branches.  
  
“Uh. Haven't thought about putting one up," Jensen manages to eloquently mumble mid-chew. The cookies are, actually, quite delicious, and Jensen makes a mental note reminding him to inquire if Jared handmade them or took the liberty of purchasing dough. His mind briefly supplies an image of a flour-peppered Jared donning an apron – and potentially nothing else – brandishing patterned bowls sticky with batter and teeming with an overload of chocolate chips.  
  
“It’s December! It’ll be Christmas soon!” Jared cries, sounding akin to an elf bombarded with Christmas wish-lists hours away from a scheduled delivery on Christmas Eve, "No tree!"  
  
Jensen wipes the cinnamon sprinkled on his fingers off on his pants and momentarily diverts his attention away from the plate of cookies tempting him from the counter.  
  
“Is that a crime in your house?”  
  
“Pretty much,” Jared says, circling the coffee table as if scanning the area for a spot vacant from furniture large enough to accommodate a Christmas tree.  
  
“Is the Christmas police going to take me away if I don't put one up?"  
  


“Sounds about right,” Jared says, shaking his head as if he’s never laid his eyes on a sight more deplorable than a house without a tree, seizing a cookie off of the plate and eating it whole before swinging an arm around Jensen’s shoulders and tugging him into his side. “So when are you free to go shopping for a tree?”  
  
\---  
  
To be fair, accepting Steve’s offer of taking his archaic plastic tree, crookedly bent at the tip because the box Steve stores it in is a handful of inches too small to accommodate its size, might have been easier than going through the trouble of getting a real tree.  
  
Then again, Jared Padalecki’s presence and with it, his addictive bursts of laughter, come with option number two, something that Jensen would choose blindfolded over the packaged promptness of an artificial Christmas tree.  
  
Apparently, it had been a crime that by mid-December, Jensen was still sans tree, something that would have inevitably forced him to celebrate Christmas Eve sitting under a coat hanger decorated with ornaments versus sliding presents across the tree skirt and sipping hot chocolate by an impressively sized Christmas tree glittering with lights. His house in general is severely lacking any holiday festivity, front door free of wreath and mantle free of stockings.  
  
Meanwhile, Jared’s house appears as if it’s been built off of a holiday card, the only thing missing from the explosion of cheer and Christmas being the ice rink full of twirling couples in red scarves sharing Eskimo kisses. He has garlands hanging from kitchen cabinets, lights strung not only from the rooftop but also from the indoor walls, snowglobes depicting elves and Santa carrying armfuls of gifts with wide grins, and best of all, a Santa outfit hung up in the closet.  
  
So now he’s here, being led onto a Christmas tree farm stacked with trees tall enough to scrape the stars and green branches as far as Jensen’s eye stretches to the horizon. He can hear children squealing and watches as one toddler bundled in multiple coats yanks on the branches of one particularly fat tree from atop his father’s shoulders and proceeds to nibble on the needles now sticking from his fist. There are couples walking hand in hand observing the Virginia Pines and families circling the slender options on the left. Beside him, Jared is beaming like he’s about to adopt an energetic puppy instead of preparing to purchase a Christmas tree. Unfortunately, it’s contagious, and despite the bitter breeze and the chill of the brisk evening that whips on Jensen’s cheeks like a blade, Jensen feels a smile play on his own lips as he breathes in the fresh scent of pine needles and snow.  
  
“My momma never would’ve left a house without a tree around Christmastime if she can help it,” Jared tells him, weaving between the lines of soldiered trees all differing slightly in size and height. “When I got my own place and, my dogs were always trying to eat my tree, so I almost thought about getting rid of it, but my momma wouldn’t allow it.”  
  
Jensen fingers a few needles and slides his gaze back to Jared. There’s a faded green hat bunched atop his head, hair by his ears curling up around the hem, and the tip of his nose is a gentle shade of pink. His cheeks are equally whipped by the cold, rosy on the cheekbones when his lips split apart into a grin, and somehow, even without his Santa suit, Jared looks like Santa personified. Jensen watches Jared’s tongue slide out to lick over his lower lip, dry from the chill, and refrains from the bubbling urge ordering him to bury himself into Jared’s coat and press his nose into his neck. Somehow, even amidst a canvas of snow crunching under their shoes and the telltale wind of a December night, Jensen knows that Jared is warm. It’s not until Jared shoves his elbow into Jensen’s stomach that he realizes that he’s been ogling Jared’s teeth and the line of his jaw instead of critiquing trees. It’s not until Jared shoves his elbow into Jensen’s stomach that he realizes that he’s been ogling Jared’s teeth and the line of his jaw instead of critiquing trees and the two of them veer down a path laden with snow and proudly erected trees.  
  
“Smell this one, Jen,” Jared pleads and almost pushes Jensen headfirst into a tree trunk. A branch of pine needles tickle his nose and worm up his nostrils, which Jensen would mind if it wasn’t for the broad hand splayed out on the small of his back and Jared’s eyes watching him for a reaction over the fresh, festive fragrance of a Christmas tree’s pine needles. Jensen takes a whiff and pulls back, silly smile still etched on his face that only seems to encourage Jared’s holiday spirit even further.  
  
“It’s good,” Jensen says, and catches the aroma once more, “better than the plastic trees, that’s for sure.”  
  
“What do you think of the tree?” Jared asks, hand on Jensen’s back curling over his hip as he pushes himself up onto his toes to peer at the peak of the tree and deem it suitable in terms of size. He ruffles the needles as if he’s petting the head of a furry dog. Jensen chuckles and leans into Jared’s side, warm like the soft air billowing from a furnace.  
  
“Looks nice and big to me.”  
  
“You think it’ll fit in your place?”  
  
“Yeah, I bet it will.”  
  
Jared trots around the tree, the hand secure on Jensen's hip sliding down from his torso to grab his hand instead. He intertwines his gloved fingers, fuzzy and knitted as if crocheted by a first grader, the yarn pulling apart and revealing slivers of Jared's palm that press straight into Jensen's hand, encased in warm leather mittens. He expects there to be glares from disapproving fathers at their PDA, repugnant glances from the trees salesman at the sight of their looped fingers on proud display in between their bodies, but there aren't. Jared's thumb rubs a slow, circular pattern on the back of Jensen's palm like it’s the most natural thing in the world for them to be constantly in contact, whether it be their hands intertwined or their thighs aligned when they sit on sofas together. Jared is always touching, touching things so much some might assume that he's a blind man searching out guidance in other people's arms and legs. He pats little children toying with Santa's beard on the head and holds their hands when they need assistance climbing onto his lap. He strokes Jensen's palm when he holds it, massages his shoulders when he's standing in front of him, and gives out hugs, genuine hugs that require involvement from both arms and thorough squeezing, as if whoever he's pulling into his embrace is a long lost relative rescued from the clutches of a lethal illness.  
  
“These trees,” Jared says, nestling his nose deep into the branches and murmuring from within the cocoon of the tree's needles, "smell _amazing_. They need to make air refresheners that smell like this.”  
  
The hand gripping onto Jensen's tugs insistently until Jensen stumbles into his side, catching a whiff of the scent of fresh pine needles when Jared waves a handful of fat, brilliantly green branches under his nose with his free hand. He looks thrilled. Thrilled to be breathing in the scent of a Christmas tree that only tickles the nose and reminds the brain of wintery memories of hanging up garlands and throwing snowballs down icy driveways during a certain time of year, thrilled to be perusing through a line of endless trees during a freezing night in December, the snow under their boots slowly causing cold to worm through the protection of their shoes and socks, thrilled to be doing it with Jensen pressed up against his side.  
  
Jensen feels a trickling of warmth slithering through his veins that has nothing to do with the murky hot chocolate he was given in a Styrofoam cup upon arriving to the tree farm, the very tips of his fingers electrocuted with a burst of heat that seems to radiate from his heart. He feels like a character that jumped straight out of a Christmas special, caught in the snow, cheeks nipped pink, and feeling the undeniable surge of love in his belly. It feels overwhelming, cliché, and incredibly corny, but before he stomps the cheese into the snow beneath the sole of his shoe, Jensen indulges and furls his hand around the nape of Jared’s neck to tug him down, Jared going willingly with a wolfish smile when he realizes Jensen's intentions. Their chapped lips rub together, Jared’s tongue sliding out to wet Jensen’s lower lip and Jared’s hand, previously occupied ruffling the tree's needles, sliding up Jensen's jaw. Two gloved fingers prop up Jensen's chin as he kisses the cold away from his mouth, soft and languorous and spreading warmth throughout Jensen's limbs like the heat from a roaring bonfire.  
  
When they pull back, there’s a snowflake on Jared’s eyelashes, delicate and incredibly small in comparison to the rest of Jared’s face. Jensen spies the slightest bit of evening stubble on his chin, a mark on his cheek, a miniscule scar by his eyebrow, a mossy green set of eyes, and a very pointy nose. The snowflake melts into Jared's eyelashes, and Jensen leans in for another kiss.  
  
He’s pretty positive that he’d buy every tree on the lot if Jared would promise to keep kissing him in the snow like this. It still feels corny, it's still a scene that would have his roommates cracking up at exactly how much of a teenage girl in love Jensen is, and it still feels like something pulled from the middle of a romantic holiday film. But even if heavy duty cameras started recording their walk through the snow laden grounds to sell to Lifetime, Jensen couldn't bring himself to mind.  
  
\--  
  
“Uh, Jensen? Santa Claus is here and he says you’ve been a very bad boy this year.”  
  
Jensen throws the dishtowel at Steve when he starts chuckling over the tomatoes and turns out of the kitchen to where Chris is holding open the door open for a very stuffed, toothy Santa with a familiar set of teeth promptly on time for dinner. When Jensen had arranged tonight’s date a week prior, it had seemed like a splendid opportunity for the two of them to share a wintery night nestled into the same end of the couch while feeding Christmas pudding to Jared’s bottomless stomach. When Steve and Chris had overheard Jensen’s phone call and made the valiant decision to join him and Jared under the bribe of Steve providing his own homemade, complementary dinner with the pork chops Jensen can’t resist, Jensen should have seen the blinking, neon warning lights and backed out.  
  
“Chris, stop harassing your childhood hero.”  
  
“He could be _dangerous_ , Jensen. He could be hiding all kinds of things and presents in his pants.”  
  
Chris’ smirk dissolves into poorly suppressed sniggers, going as far as to find purpose on the wall and leaning against the door for support. Santa ho-ho-hos cheerfully from the threshold and jiggles his padding rhythmically. The ho-ho-hoing is sort of adorable and makes Jensen want to giggle like a child on Santa’s lap, and apparently he’s not doing a very good job of hiding his smitten smile, because two seconds later Chris digs his fingernail into Jensen’s cheek where his mouth cracks into a smile and continues his tirade of chortles.  
  
“Would you pipe down?” Jensen gives Chris a look which wordlessly pleads through a telepathic link formed after years of dysfunctional friendship for him to keep his hobby of ridiculing Jensen in front of attractive men to a minimum and emphasizes that point by swatting Chris in the back of his head.  
  
“ _What?_ ” Chris yowls, rubbing at his neck with an immovable smug grin that seems to have immunity to any pain Jensen attempts to inflict upon him, “Like you wouldn’t be doubled over if I walked through this doorway mooning over an elf.”  
  
Jensen has half a mind to strangle Steve with the garland looping around the staircase only a mere tantalizing two feet out of his reach, but Jared interrupts as if he has no issue watching Jensen banter with his friends over his uniform.  
  
“I take it you must be Chris?” He asks in the same jolly tone that suggests that if Chris answers correctly, Santa will unload a brand new choo-choo train for him from his bag.  
  
Chris nods, taking Jared’s hand and shaking it as Santa jovially wiggles his belly in tune to their handshake.  
  
“Tell me, Santa, what kind of conditioner do you use for your beard, I’m thinking of growing mine–”  
  
Jensen shoves Chris bodily into the staircase banister and yanks Jared in from the cold. He plucks his beard away from his mouth and plants a kiss on his lips, one Jensen had first intended to be brief for the sake of the lewd audience nearby that is Chris Kane sitting on the steps, but Jared seems to be either uncaring of mockery or unaware of exactly who Jensen’s friends are as he slides a hand to his neck to keep him firmly in place.  
  
Hardly to Jensen’s surprise, the catcalls start a few seconds later and Steve’s low whistle of approval wafts over to their ears, so by the time they finally resurface, Steve and Chris are clapping like automatons on the steps. Both of them have the decency to blush when Jared readjusts his beard and threatens to put both of them on his notorious Naughty List for blatantly eavesdropping on Santa and his new boyfriend.  
  
“And you must be Steve!” Jared says after his reprimand, still uncannily replicating Santa’s tone of voice, his arm still around Jensen’s waist and the other settled comfortably on his hip. Jensen will admit that it’s a little disturbing, but after Steve also gets a good handshake in and Jared turns back to Jensen with a private smile and squeeze to the fabric at the small of his back, Jensen’s back on board whether or not Jared’s clad in his suit or not.  
  
After half an hour of Jensen introducing Jared, Steve and Chris both sporting matching grins the entire time, the wig and beard get itchy and eventually get dumped onto the floor alongside the stuffing deposited nearby on the couch, Jared ultimately clad in an oversized festive suit and matching hat as they all bustle around the kitchen. Chris is in the armchair finding possibly every holiday-themed _Friends_ episode in existence while Jensen tends to the one light that’s malfunctioned and caused the lower half of the tree to blink furiously in the corner. Steve is cursing over his steaming pots like always and Jared is lending hands to everyone. It feels incredibly odd to not be at home or on a plane headed to Texas without the snowy conditions or overload of work to blame for his absence from his family’s dinner table, to be without his mother making too many potatoes and his father teaching Mackenzie how to understand the rules of football or without Josh spiking the eggnog just enough for him to feel like a deviant but not enough to make mom notice after her second glass of holiday wine. The house doesn’t smell like one of his mother’s cinnamon pies and the tree isn’t decorated with the traditional ornaments that he and his siblings made in second grade. But there’s still everyone he needs here, and when the tree finally lights up two seconds away from Jensen hauling it to the window and tossing it straight into the neighbor’s lawn, ornaments and all, and Jared yanks him onto his lap with a hand rubbing in circular patterns on the small of his back, Jensen feels perfectly comfortable exactly where he is.  
  
\--  
  
It takes another hour before Steve finishes dinner, a delay that Jensen is convinced was orchestrated by Chris when he leant over Steve’s shoulder and offered the distraction of kneading his ass while Steve stirred tomatoes into his soup, and another ten minutes before everybody’s settled onto the couch with their respective plates and utensils. Jared’s plate is the biggest of them all, stacked with everything Steve made in bulk plus the leftover Christmas cookies that were sitting on the counter after Jensen’s elderly neighbor brought them over in a tin box alongside a few holiday wishes for him and his household.  
  
They sit in relative silence after Chris puts the Fight Club DVD in, except for when Jared continuously praises Steve for his ability to tastefully prepare meat with just the right amount of spice that reminds him of his momma’s cooking, or when Chris comments on the realism of Brad Pitt’s acting, or when Jared starts leaning in to leave lazy kisses following slow, gentle sucks and flicks of his tongue over Jensen’s neck and Jensen responds with gasps that leave Steve and Chris throwing pillows at both of them.  
  
So far, there have been three can-I-visit-your-North-Pole jokes directed at Jared and two instances of Chris trying on Jared’s Santa Claus beard and attempting to replicate Santa’s low, stereotypical rumbling chortle. There has been a lot of teasing, a lot of lewd jokes that on any other occasion would have humiliated Jensen enough to summon up a rosy tinge to his cheeks – similar to how his younger sister shrieked and blushed when Jensen accidentally stumbled upon her diary – if Jared hadn’t responded with laughter that tipped his head back, and a lot of superfluous grinning that hint to Jensen that Steve and Chris are biting back enough eruptions of laughter to cause their stomachs to implode. Somehow, though, he’s aware that this is his bizarre friends’ method of speechlessly approving of Jensen’s equally bizarre relationship with a Santa Claus actor.  
  
Jensen’s spent a lot of years living vicariously through Chris and Steve’s blossoming relationship, whether it be when they first had sex and Jensen found the evidence on his couch cushions the morning after while the two of them were hiding their faces in their coffee cups, or when they danced around each other like men hopping on eggshells until Chris summoned up his Southern courage and pressed Steve up against a kitchen cabinet for a spontaneous, slightly awkward make out. It had been right before the three of them had settled onto Jensen’s sofa to watch _Die Hard_ , which meant that Steve had been in the middle of his signature pre-movie preparation of popcorn, which had been promptly discarded and dropped onto the floor upon first contact with Chris’ surprise assault with his mouth. Jensen had been the one to pick the bits of popcorn off the floor, which hadn’t been the best way to spend the evening when earlier he had been promised Bruce Willis on his television, but he would have plucked kernels from his kitchen floor for hours if only to stop watching his friends behave as if they were channeling the spirit of shy schoolgirls in rabid love with each other.  
  
Now, however, it’s Jensen who gets to fall in love. As if on cue, Jensen feels a flutter like a firework sizzling to life in his stomach as Jared nuzzles his cheeks and hitches up his shirt, two fingers sliding over the bare sliver of skin exposed at his hipbone. Jensen’s had his fair share of crushes, ranging from his fixation on his photography teacher in ninth grade to ogling the guy with the low-riding jeans and rugged brown hair who sat behind him in Physics class. He’s also had his fair share of one night stands after Danneel had dragged him out to her favorite club and he’d been bought too many drinks that were nine parts hard, unidentifiable liquor and one part soda, where a man with a hard body and hot breath pressed up against him under dancing lights and a sweaty dance floor.  
  
And now, he’s not in the middle of a high school crisis of unrequited love, and he’s not in the middle of a bar where all the men who hit on him tug on his belt loops and ask what his favorite position is before they ask what his name is. He’s in the lap of a very touchy, very giggly, and very wonderful boyfriend who’s kneading the muscles on his shoulders and slowly making him hard with soft kisses on his jaw where the evening stubble is being born. This time, Jensen feels like he _is_ the firework. He leans over his shoulder, catches Jared’s half-lidded gaze that causes Jensen’s dick to stir in his pants, and presses their lips together.  
  
By the time Fight Club is over, all Jensen knows is that his boyfriend is a lot hotter than a shirtless Brad Pitt.  
  
\--  
  
Jensen hasn’t had someone in his bed since Danneel brought her diva dog with her a few months ago who wouldn’t settle for sleeping anywhere soft enough except right atop Jensen’s pillow, whether or not his head was already occupying it. He’s woken up curled around his pillow like seaweed knotted around an ankle and once in Steve’s bed after a night of intoxication and karaoke that ended in Jensen not being able to stumble up the stairs all the way to his room when the doorknob ended up being too tricky to operate. But falling asleep and then proceeding to wake up in the same bed with another human being willingly curled up next to him with a head cushioned on his chest and little to no clothes separating their legs and torsos, this is something Jensen hasn’t practiced in a while.  
  
Steve is in the middle of packing away the _Fight Club_ DVD and collecting the dishes when Jared decides to crawl into Jensen’s lap and tug his bottom lip into his mouth. He’s still wearing the ridiculous red pants, hemmed with black, fluffed furs and soft to the touch. Behind him, the tree glitters and the ornaments seem to wink and glint at him, and a part of Jensen feels like he’s been suddenly transported to the corny end of a Christmas family film. Then Jared grinds down into Jensen’s hip and suddenly, there isn’t anything family-appropriate about this moment.  
  
“Mmm, Jensen,” Jared murmurs on his lips, mouth hot and slurring wetly on Jensen’s as a tint of Texan accent slides into the edge of his words that makes no detours and rushes Jensen’s blood straight southward. As if completely unaware of the two men still clattering about the room behind them, Jared pulls back from Jensen’s mouth to rub the pad of his thumb over Jensen’s lower lip and flit over his facial features, and for once, Jensen feels entirely focused on. He clutches at Jared’s hips and plants a kiss to his chin before Jared slides his large hands to his cheeks and grins.  
  
“You wanna go upstairs?” Jensen asks, and Jared’s smile grows, crooked and adorable in ways that makes Jensen want to mentally stretch the minutes out he gets to stare unabashedly at Jared's swollen, spit-slicked lips and memorize the look of Jared’s dimples.  
  
“Not so fast there, cowboy,” Chris’ bemused voice drawls from the kitchen, and Jared eases himself off of Jensen’s lap reluctantly. “Mind if I borrow Mrs. Claus before the two of you go running off upstairs?”  
  
Jared smirks, seemingly immune to the Santa jokes and comments by now, and, one hand curled into Jensen’s sweater, gives him a tender kiss on the side of his mouth before heading for the kitchen.  
  
“No problem, dude,” he says, and grabs the dishtowel slung over Chris’ shoulder, “I’ll just help Steve with the dishes.”  
  
Jensen still has a semi-prominent boner poking its way through his boxers and slightly tenting his jeans when Chris grabs him by the elbow and yanks him over to where the tree is twinkling prettily. He’s still smiling, smug like he’s recorded the entire evening to later broadcast to Jared and Jensen’s adopted children to prove how they couldn’t even make it through an entire movie before searching out each other’s lips. Jensen frowns.  
  
“What have you been grinning about with Steve all evening long?” Jensen mutters. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches as Jared helps wipe off the counters and chuckle good-naturedly at something Steve is saying, hopefully not a distasteful pun about Santa Claus. Beside him, Chris shrugs.  
  
“Nothin’,” he says, rather evasively, and when fixed with a hardly amused glare, Chris expounds, “You just look happy, man. Even if your boyfriend’s Santa.”  
  
“So… you like Jared?”  
  
“’Course I like Jared,” Chris says, and he’s looking at Jensen like he’s slow in the head, “but you know I’m never going to let the Santa thing go, right?”  
  
Jensen pushes Chris into the tree, which jiggles, shakes, and almost loses a few ornaments. Chris gracelessly regains his balance by swiping for the mantle and tugging himself upright, picking a stray needle off of his shoulder. He jabs a finger into Jensen’s chest.  
  
“And that is why _you_ are on the naughty list this year,” says Chris, and Jensen smiles, “Just keep it down tonight.”  
  
\--  
  
When Jensen finally shakes off Chris and Jared is done fastidiously cleaning Steve’s countertops, his pulse is running like a drumbeat ready to leap straight from his body and take all of the air in his lungs along for a coffee break. He tries to shrug off the burning sensation that fuels Jensen’s adrenaline and treats him with the far from foreign sensation of adolescent, crazy love burning his esophagus like a sweet drug. He clutches at Jared’s hand when it winds into his and tugs him up the stairs, and by the time that they make it past the door of Jensen’s room, their want changes to a desperate yearning that develops a life of its own.  
  
Jared’s hands wind into Jensen’s hair, fingers playing with the strands on the nape of his neck, right where it gets rough and bristly, and their lips connect again.  
  
“What – what did Steve say?” Jensen manages in between fevered kisses, Jared’s tongue starting to demand equal attention from Jensen’s ministrations as he swipes it over Jensen’s lower lip, and suddenly, their kiss is interrupted with Jared’s grin pressing into his lips.  
  
“Just wanted to make sure I’d be treating you right,” Jared murmurs, the hands drawing patterns onto the nape of Jensen’s neck sliding down from his shoulders to his chest to his waist, pulling him in closer until their chests bump and hips buck together, “Since, y’know. I’m planning on stickin’ around.”  
  
Jensen pulls back and refills his lungs. He inhales and slides his thumbs over Jared’s cheekbones, remembering when they were pink and kissed with the cold when they shopped for trees, or how he first fell in love with his laugh when his nephew was situated on top of his lap, and how right now, his heart is pumping fast enough to jumpstart a parking lot full of cars all thanks to the man in front of him grinning down at Jensen like he’s awed to have him in his arms.  
  
“I think I’d be okay with that,” Jensen breathes.  
  
“Me too,” replies Jared, suddenly whispering, as if they’re sharing secrets, and Jensen presses their forehead together with another cautious inhale, “And Steve as well.”  
  
“Fuck Steve,” Jensen says firmly, determined not to imagine his friends leaning against the door with their ears on the slivers where the sound wafts out just to make sure that Jensen is finally getting laid after months of unwilling abstinence, instead concentrating on the panting man in front of him pulling him in the direction of the bed until they both topple on the mattress in a tangle of limbs and knocking of knees.  
  
The conversation stops there, not to the dismay of either man as Jared straddles Jensen’s hips and takes a moment to watch Jensen readjust on the mattress beneath him and lick his lips. Silently, Jensen realizes that it’s probably his own saliva Jared’s licking from his shiny mouth, and eager to leave as many marks that’ll survive in the morning, he sits up and dives into Jared’s neck, hands winding around his broad shoulders and mouth sucking bruises up his jugular.  
  
Jared makes small, whimpering noises of content as Jensen licks over the spots he’s darkled on the expanse of his neck that only manage to spur Jensen on like alcohol being dribbled to a flame. Right now, he feels a bit like that flame, hot and spreading fast like wildfire, his entire body alight with the brazen energy that has Jensen nipping over the lobe of Jared’s ear and panting onto his eardrum. He’s barely been on this bed for sixty seconds and his lung is already lacking oxygen as he struggles to find the capacity to breathe when he’s this close to Jared, a man who is incredulously handsome, inconceivably funny, and somehow, _wants Jensen too_.  
  
Next thing Jensen’s aware of, he’s on his back and his head is cushioned on his pillows as Jared’s fingers tickle up his shirt to rub over his chest and play with his nipples, murmuring at the skin on his jaw. Jared’s jaw is rough with stubble, burning on Jensen’s like tires finding friction on the road, but Jensen’s already too dazed to mind. He doesn’t remember getting this breathless, or getting this awed by the color of Jared’s eyes, but when he slides his hands to the hem of Jared’s sweater to pull it over his head and Jared grins at him with blindingly white, adorably uneven teeth, Jensen once again remembers why he’s so gone from Earth for this guy. His length jumps in his pants, and suddenly, Jensen can't wait, can't wait for Jared to wrap his lips around his cock and tickle his tongue around the slit, he can’t wait for Jared to push into him and fuck him into a state of dribbling incoherence, for him to feel the pinpricks of sated pain ghost up his rear in the morning. He feels the blood rush and gather where Jared nips and bites and can't wait to press into his abused flesh come his shower, can't wait for it all to happen again, can't wait to recreate this moment and how fast his pulse is running over and over again.  
  
Jared aligns their hips and rolls downward, their tented erections rubbing at each other through the denim and causing Jensen to cry out and pull Jared down for another kiss. He’s hard enough to hammer nails, and from the hard line of Jared’s length pressed into the crook of Jensen’s thigh, Jensen knows that Jared is too, but even through the haze of lust, Jared is still unbelievably gentle. He keeps up the slow rock of his hips and drinks in all of Jensen’s short, broken moans when he softly presses kisses to his chin and his mouth, tongue sliding in slowly, lazily, like the languid heat of a muggy August afternoon in Texas. He kisses with the unhurried intensity of sleepy teenagers lounging on a rooftop in the sun, drawing out Jensen’s tongue with his own and _mmmm_ ing against his mouth like he’s licking the flavor out of the creamiest, tastiest chocolate pie he’s ever eaten. He feels like he’s back at home in Texas eating his mother’s apple tart in the back of Josh’s car, except this time, there’s a beautiful boy on top of him leisurely kissing him like he’d be happy to make out for hours at a time.  
  
Jared takes his time, mouth slow and hot like a brand on his skin as he indulges in the expanse of Jensen's bare skin, and suddenly, Jensen wants to memorize the sight of Jared Padalecki crawling in between his legs, hands braced on his thighs, while his tongue leaves a trail of suckling kisses down his chest, as fuel for a decade's worth of masturbation. He slides his hands into Jared's hair, soft and curling around his fingers when Jensen twirls his thumb around the wayward strand winded around the shell of Jared's ear, and Jared grins up at him, lips slick and mouth crooked and mischievous, roguish like the countenance of a teenage rebel, and the shiver that it results in runs through Jensen's body like electricity. Jared tongue acts in slow motion, fastening over Jensen's left nipple and moistening it as the flesh pebbles beneath his lips before moving down to lick over Jensen's navel and leaving a shadow of slick wetness in his wake that only makes Jensen’s dick press harder against the cruel confines of his boxers. Jared crawls back up to continue his ministrations on Jensen’s mouth, tongue swiping over his lower lip, and Jensen whimpers.  
  
“C’mon, Jared,” Jensen says. Jared’s lips are already swollen from their onslaught of kisses, a sight tempting enough to Jensen to make him reach out to suck Jared’s lip back into his mouth and not let it go until it’s bruised and bright.  
  
“Pants off?” Jared finally groans out, and Jensen nods.  
  
Jared fumbles with the zipper of Jensen’s pants, which would have been laughable had it happened in any other circumstance, but in the now, Jensen’s erection is aching to be freed and to feel the contact of Jensen’s broad palm pumping it. When Jared finally succeeds in shimmying Jensen’s jeans down to his ankles, Jensen feels as if his hormones are going to rear their desperate heads enough to become their own entities. In a fleeting moment, he feels like he’s thirteen and eager again, and when Jared follows suit and pushes down his own pants and boxers, Jensen almost foams at the mouth.  
  
Jared’s hands are impressively sized, just like his shoulders, just like his feet, and apparently, just like his erection. Jensen reaches out, fingers wrapping around Jared’s length, already leaking at the slit and hot and heavy in Jensen’s palm. Jared keens at the touch and kisses at Jensen’s neck like he’s frantic to taste him, tongue licking over the beads of trickling sweat gathering under his ear and by his jaw. His hand slithers down Jensen’s torso and matches the rhythm Jensen’s hand is sliding to, his own fingers, long and slender, wrapping around Jensen’s dick and stroking.  
  
It is, quite simply, heaven offered in the form of Jared Padalecki’s hands. The contact feels blissful, enough for Jensen to moan and rut up during Jared’s down stroke when Jared’s thumb teases over the head of his length and smears the precome there until his hand is slick and glides like skates on ice.  
  
Their cheeks rub together while Jared pants in his ear, hand squeezing and rubbing like he’s reading all of Jensen’s thoughts, already aware of his sensitive spots and what turns him on the most. Part of it, Jensen knows, is just Jared himself, who smells like cinnamon and the spice of Steve’s dinner and underneath it all, Texan musk and burnt sugar. He makes Jensen want to shake like a storm-tossed kitten at the intensity of it all, and at the same time, tear off Jared’s undergarments with his teeth, whether or not it’s a Santa suit or traditional jeans in the way of him doing so properly.  
  
“Nn, Jen, lean in, just – lean in for me,” Jared pleads, voice raspy and desperate like he’s just downed a bottle of ancient whiskey, and Jensen can do little but obey. He arches up into Jared like he’s hungry for his touch, and a second later, when Jared takes both of their erections into his hand and squeezes with just the right amount of pressure, Jensen doesn’t know how he’s ever going to survive without Jared nestled in his sheets every night.  
  
“ _God_ , Jared, _please_ ,” groans Jensen, voice unleashed and volume no longer a concern Jensen’s bothering himself with, despite the discomfort and awkward moments over breakfast cereal it might bring his roommates. Jared only moans, gripping Jensen’s jaw and pulling him back into a wet kiss that is everything Jensen’s been yearning for since he first saw Jared grin at the giggling children on his lap at the mall. Everything about Jared is perfect, from how he laughs, to how he treats his friends, to how he can pull off a red Santa Claus suit with matching beard and hat and still manage to tingle Jensen’s inside like a feather tickling the walls of his stomach.  
  
“So hot, Jen. Jesus. So close for you,” Jared murmurs on Jensen’s lips, hot and needy, dick rocking against Jensen’s hard enough to create friction that has Jensen whining. They thrust against each other like shameless teenagers in the back of the movie theater, mouths searching for each other and legs bumping as they roll their hips together and let out low, guttural moans in unison.  
  
When Jensen comes, he does so with the intensity of a car crash. He’s moaning, sweaty, and his neck is damp with Jared’s saliva, and somehow, he doesn’t remember the last time he’s felt this thoroughly satisfied. There isn’t a part of Jared that he isn’t touching with bare, slick skin, not a part he isn’t planning on thoroughly discovering with his tongue until he knows Jared’s figure like a map and is fluent in his body language, and coming in his arms is better than opening a million presents on Christmas morning or getting the first Christmas cookie out of a warm, fresh batch. He rolls his hips with trembling thighs into Jared’s still frantic thrusts, a movement which, when combined with the sight of Jensen reaching completion and letting out a litany of low moans, makes Jared come within two minutes of Jensen with just as much noise and quivering as the man underneath him did mere minutes earlier.  
  
Jared collapses on Jensen’s chest without a shred of energy to muster up to force his muscles to move, his breath hot on Jensen’s shoulder and his grin easy to detect on the flesh of his neck. Their chests heave together as their lungs regain their lost breath and suddenly, Jensen laughs.  
  
“Can’t believe I just let Santa give me a handjob.”  
  
Jared snickers and rolls off of Jensen’s chest, hand sliding up his sweaty forehead to tangle in the hair by Jensen’s ear. He plays with a few short strands with a tender thumb until the chortles sizzle to a comfortable stop and both of them lean onto their sides and meet gazes. The air is cool and ghosts over their bare torsos, Jared nude with the exception of fuzzy red socks pooling at his ankles that Jensen seemed to bypass in his rush to remove Jared of all garments cruelly attempting to keep him from accomplishing his goal of undressing him. Rays of white moonlight filter through the blinds slanted over the windows, splayed over Jared's face in intervals so Jensen catches sight of one bright green eye and the line of his jaw.  
  
“So,” Jared whispers, suddenly feeling the need to, and Jensen shuffles closer, Jared taking it as an invitation to throw a warm leg over his hip, “I know Santa isn’t normally the one to make the lists, but… I want you to know that you’re on my wish list this year. Y’know. Just in case you were curious.”  
  
Jared’s tongue presses against his teeth and he grins. The strands of his hair are still in chaos as if recently electrocuted, his lips are still bruised and shiny from Jensen pulling him down for wet kisses, and their come is cooling between their thighs, threatening to get crusty on their skin by morning light. Jared looks unspeakably adorable with his post-coital grin of lazy bliss, adorable enough for Jensen to muster up the remaining dredges of his energy to give into his desire to plant one last sleepy kiss onto his beaming lips being nestled his nose into Jared's chest and breathing in the scent of minty aftershave and the lingering aroma of beads of sweat slowly evaporating as their lust climbs down to a sleepy dormancy.  
  
“So I guess that this year, I should be under your tree on Christmas morning?” Jensen murmurs, and really, he should’ve known that Jared wouldn’t settle for anything other than cuddling after a handjob. He feels himself being manhandled into Jared’s arms and positioned atop his chest, Jared softly breathing out on top of his head and nuzzling the hair there with his chin.  
  
“Well, now that would be a Christmas miracle.”  
  
“Arranged,” Jensen murmurs onto Jared’s chest, warm and thumping with even palpitations under his ear perfect for lulling him to an easy sleep. He feels Jared grin on his scalp, nose buried in his hair, and with one hand curled around Jared’s hip and the other tugging Jensen's forgotten sheets atop their entangled legs, Jensen is lured into slumber without a murmur of protest.  
  
\--  
  
When Jensen comes home on Christmas Eve, the first thing he sees is startling darkness, and the second is the flame of a stubby candle alit on the mantle with molten wax trickling a river down the wall.  
  
He follows the candles licking light onto the walls with their burning wicks, all mismatched and varying in sizes as if they were dusty candles neglected in the back of the pantry until someone happened to seize them by accident while searching for the cinnamon, until Jensen comes across what appears to be the corny conclusion to a holiday-themed romantic comedy in the form of his roommates necking on the couch.  
  
“Evening, ladies. Am I interrupting a homemade dinner preceding a bubble bath?”  
  
“ _Jesus_ , Jensen, I didn’t know you were there,” Steve’s voice drifts out of the darkness before Jensen makes out the clear cut shape of a shadow in the form of Steve’s seemingly shirtless body shooting up from the couch and flicking on the lamp by the sofa. Jensen catches sight of Steve’s thoroughly rumpled hair and Chris’ lazy smirk from his position lounging on the sofa as if waiting for Steve to inevitably crawl back into it. Instead, Steve tugs on his shirt as if Jensen hasn’t walked in on his roommates sans-towel after a shower painstakingly naked or even thoroughly debauched and tangled around each other before. Jensen smirks and eyes the collection of sundry different candles all pooling with liquefied wax and flickering in the air.  
  
“Yeah, keep makin’ fun, Jensen, you’re going out with a guy who owns stomach stuffing and a big white beard," drawls Chris, stretching on the couch and reaching to grope Steve’s behind and tug him back down onto his thigh, “I can light some candles on Christmas Eve and get a blowjob on the couch.”  
  
“Speaking of Jared,” Steve mentions, one hand trying to smooth the disarray of his hair and the other attempting to still Chris’ roaming hands wandering over his hindquarters, "Is he not coming tonight? He’s not spending Christmas Eve with Mrs. Claus?"  
  
“Santa’s giving gifts to all the good little boys and girls," Chris sniggers, languid grin still painted on his face as if he's fully aware that once Jensen retreats into his room, the potential of him receiving an exquisite blowjob promptly resumes, “Think it’s too late to be nice this year?”  
  
“He has to work at the mall today. Last chance for kids to sit on Santa's lap and all," Jensen says, valiantly ignoring Chris' far from clandestine attempts to fiddle with the zipper of Steve's pants.  
  
“Then why don’t you go to the mall and see him?” Steve suggests, as if Jensen failing to produce such an idea or simply dismissing it to spend Christmas Eve with his roommates that happen to be in the middle of a romantic candlelit make out session deems him officially slow in the head.  
  
“Yeah, because," Chris murmurs, “the blowjob continues whether or not you’re here.”  
  
Jensen throws a couch pillow at Chris, which ricochets off his shoulder and nearly catches fire on one of the multiple candles as the cushion whizzes narrowly by. The candle flames flutter indignantly. The cushion lands on the carpet with a dull _plop_ , and Chris takes it as his cue to commence his sniggering and yank Steve back onto his legs.  
  
“We'll break out some eggnog with you if Santa's already off with his reindeer," Chris promises.  
  
“Yeah, okay,” Jensen concedes, wrapping his scarf back around his neck and tucking it into his jacket as he reaches for his keys dangling from the hook by the door where yet another candle illuminates a corner eclipsed in shadows. "Have fun with your bath salts."  
  
“Put your mouth back around your boyfriend’s dick where it’s useful,” Steve calls half a second later, only to be followed with a litany of noises consisting of burly squeaks and poorly stifled moans.  
  
Needless to say, Jensen doesn’t need any more motivation, and with a few frantic steps past the candlelit hallway, Jensen's heading to his car and securing the buttons of his coat as beneath him, freshly lain snow crunches and glimmers.  
  
\--  
  
By the time Jensen pulls into the parking lot of the store, readjusts his scarf, and turns off his windshield wipers as they smear away the snowflakes drifting onto his car's windows in gentle swirls journeying downwards, night has officially set. On the sides of the roads, streetlamps and the fleeting illumination from the passing headlights shine light onto the canvas of snow, barely yet flecked with the pollution of the dirt.  
  
The store is barren with the exception of a handful of shoppers, all donning similar expressions of pure panic as they toss items into their cart without second glances to reconsider their impulse purchases before steering their way toward the late-night cashiers prepared to aid the last-minute gift-givers. Over the speakers, tinny, soft Christmas music in the form of Dean Martin's peaceful voice singing about snowmen and chestnuts wafts over the aisles, and in the corner, empty with the exception of a blanket of cotton ball snow and a red carpet winding its way through a crook of a winter wonderland complete with plastic elves and an enormous crimson sleigh, sits Santa atop an plush armchair, legs swinging.  
  
The torrent of children that surely plagued the mall earlier today and threw themselves onto Santa's lap to beg for their last-minute wishes of ponies and collectible dolls are long gone, busy preparing the platter of cookies to be left out for their mythical hero or running off their Christmas Eve excitement before crawling under their sheets. For a second, all is quiet with the exception of Andy Williams' humming, and then a low, jolly voice speaks up.  
  
“Why, son, you aren’t coming to visit old man Santa, now are you?”  
  
Jensen turns to Santa, grinning from beneath his beard and jiggling his stomach in merry invitation. Jensen unhooks the golden chain roping off Santa's corner and takes a step in past the ornate sleigh to where Jared sits as Santa himself with outstretched palms. It hits Jensen then that Jared is more of a little kid than any of the children that sit on his lap and share their wish-lists of unicorn farms, and with a smile of his own that makes Jensen's heart jump and flutter like a roller coaster taking a plunge, more intense than any hordes of butterflies that could be dancing in his stomach, Jensen steps close to him until their knees bump.  
  
“You want me to get on your lap, Santa?” Jensen asks, and he looks down with a tint of amusement at where Jared is tapping his legs as temptation before patting his thighs and giving him a jolly laugh that bubbles up deep from his toes.  
  
“Hop on,” Jared whispers, pulling his beard away from his mouth to send him a furtive smile before aligning it with the curve of his jaw.  
  
“My momma would smack me if she saw me sitting on Santa’s lap as a grown man,” Jensen says, and is about to peer over his shoulders to scan the area for any disapproving elders or mothers watching the scene in front of them in horror as a fully grown man settles himself into Santa Claus’ lap and decide if he wants to risk the potential humiliation, but Jared’s hands twine into Jensen's and tug him down with a sharp yank until Jensen's draped over him and readjusting on his legs.  
  
“Now, are you going to tell me what you want for Christmas?"  
  
Jensen resists the urge to wrench off bizarre Jared’s beard and kiss him silly until by the time they come up for oxygen, Jared’s forgotten how to morph his voice into one identical to Santa's. He shifts on his lap, watching as one of Jared's hands curls around his thigh protectively. He remembers when he first saw those hands and how much they mesmerized him, from his long, slender fingers to his broad palm. Behind the fuzz of his cottony beard, Jensen sees a smile, all teeth with the slightest of pink tongue making an appearance.  
  
“What I want for Christmas?” Jensen asks, and the beard shakes in a firm, expectant nod, Jared’s other hand sliding up to palm the small of Jensen's back. His thumb rubs slow arcs into his shirt, soft and soothing, and Jensen finds himself leaning into his touch despite the fact that he's perched atop his lap while Jared’s clad in his Santa outfit in the middle of a store containing strangers easily amused by unorthodox sights similar to the one that they're currently creating.  
  
“Anything. Anything you wish for,” Jared’s voice is softer now, no longer resembling the jolly tone of Santa Claus' deep, merry voice but remaining purely his own soft rumble, breath warm on Jensen's jaw as he speaks.  
  
“Well,” says Jensen, "I was thinking a toy car. Or a real car. And better roommates. And a new camera. Oh, and... I was sort of hoping I could get a guy under my tree this year."  
  
“Oh?” Jared whispers, eyes alight and lips tugged into a seemingly immovable smile, "What type of guy?"  
  
Jensen twirls a thumb into the mop of white locks curling down Jared's chest over the curve of his stomach stuffing, "Hilarious. Ridiculously immature. The nicest guy you'll ever meet. Oh, and gorgeous. Can't forget that."  
  
“You know, Jensen,” Jared murmurs, squeezing him when Jensen readjusts on his lap and raises his eyebrows in intrigue, "I don't know about the first few wishes. But the last? I think I got someone with all of those qualities."  
  
“Who?”  
  
“Me.”  
  
They look at each other and in a fleeting moment, their eyes lock and their minds seem to telepathically align, both of them chuckling into each other’s faces when Jared pushes their foreheads together and laughs over Jensen's jaw, breath warm and cozy and slightly minty when it wafts over Jensen's nostrils. He tugs on a single silver curl locked around his thumb and grins.  
  
“You, really? Gorgeous and hilarious? Conceited much?”  
  
“Hey. I’m _Santa_ ,” Jared says, as if this firmly ends the conversation, and when he pulls Jensen in by the collar of his jacket to push their mouths together and lick into his mouth, it effectively manages to cease the banter. The plastic curls of Jared’s beard is itchy against Jensen’s chin when he kisses back and somehow, Jared’s resolute smile angles their lips together in a manner that is only cumbersome, but even if an entire family of innocent children came perusing by to stumble upon the sight of Santa thoroughly kissing another man atop his lap, Jensen wouldn't dream of pulling back.

 


End file.
